Sunday, March 29, 2009

I am going to a cooking class with a friend today. I have been to cooking classes in Japan before and have generally not liked them because of the emphasis on doing everything "right": the "right" way to cut veggies, the "right" way to hold things, etc. But when my friend invited me I thought I would give it a try.Cooking classes here require you to bring an apron, and I didn't have one so R and I went to the 100 yen store yesterday and bought one. The picture above is R modeling it in his pajamas.How does everyone feel about aprons? I had never seen a person in real life wear an apron (even on fingerpainting day at school we wore smocks, not aprons) until I came to Japan. None of my female relatives wore them, and even if they did I'm sure they wouldn't wear one in public. But in Japan housewives wear them a lot...to the supermarket, to the bus stop to drop off their kids in the morning...etc. It seems to be one of the many "uniforms" Japan has. A lot of women in my office wear them all day at work, though I honestly have no idea why...the dirtiest things people in our office handle are their computer keyboards.I grew up viewing an apron as nothing more than a symbol of female oppresion and outdated gender roles. But the lack of negative connotations associated with the apron here in Japan has forced me to reexamine that. I will never wear one every day, but I am no longer against wearing one when cooking something messy or when cleaning. I do think, however, that aprons should not be limited to women only, which is why we bought an apron that is unisex enough for R to wear, too. :-)

Thursday, March 26, 2009

I'm really not sure what is "borderline" about this at all. An elected government official sells $6 million worth of stock in a company his brother owns in a private deal at almost twice the market price, all while he is supposed to be prohibited from trading stocks because he is a ministry (of finance, no less!) official? Sounds pretty clearcut to me. I do find it funny, however, that there is no penalty for breaking this rule...